The First Meeting of the Heads of Railway Administrations of the Organization of Turkic States was convened on 27 October 2022 in Tashkent.
The meeting was hosted and moderated by Mr. Husnutdin Hasilov, Acting Chairman of the Board, JSC "O’zbekiston temir yo'llari", and attended by H.E. Baghdad Amreyev, Secretary General of the OTS, Mr. Abdusamat Muminov, Deputy Minister of Transport of Uzbekistan, Mr. Nurlan Sauranbayev, Chairman of the Board of JSC “NC “Kazakhstan Railways”, Mr. Azamat Sakiev, General Director GP "NC "Kyrgyz Railway", Mr. Iqbal Guseinov, Deputy Chairman, “Azerbaijan Railways” CJSC and Mr. Çetin Altun, Deputy General Manager, TCDD Transportation, Türkiye.
During the meeting Secretary General, Baghdad Amreyev expressed the prime importance of transport sector for enhancing trade between Turkic States and economic development of the whole region.
Emphasizing the transport and transit potential of the Member countries, B.Amreyev stated that Trans-Caspian Corridor, passing through OTS region, has a strategic priority and is a trade crossroads connecting the Europe with Asia.
Reiterating the instructions of the Heads of the States of the OTS during the last Istanbul Summit on 12 November 2021, to simplify transport and transit procedures within the Turkic region, B.Amreyev pointed out that Agreement on International Combined Freight Transport Agreement within the OTS will accelerate and ensure uninterrupted and unimpeded communication with Europe through the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor, which will increase the strategic value and prosperity of OTS countries.
In addition, Secretary General emphasized the need to diversify trade and transport routes, eliminate border-crossing restrictions imposed by some States on transit routes, maintain seamless, integrated, efficient and sustainable multimodal connectivity across the Trans-Caspian Corridor and restructure the logistics flows. In this respect, he particularly underlined the significant role of a new Zangezur corridor that will facilitate connectivity in the Turkic Region and promote closer integration between Europe and Asia.
During their statements, the Heads of Railway Administrations of the OTS underlined the importance of maintaining mutually beneficial cooperation and the use of special tariff rates and conditions for the movements of goods between countries, that will increase the trade volume and help to attract additional cargo flows in the region.
They also stressed the necessity to effectively use the existing transport and transit potential, (infrastructure) of the region, and to develop an integrated transport system that can become a key transit hub on the Eurasian continent.
The Heads of Railway Administrations determined the areas of multilateral cooperation, to take joint efforts to create a multimodal transport and logistics corridor passing through OTS countries. To this end, they suggested to establish a Working Group consisting from experts of the railway administrations of each Member State to study, evaluate and jointly solve challenges across the route (corridor).
The Parties also exchanged their views on increasing the volume of cargo transportation among the countries of the Organization of Turkic States; organization of transit cargo transportation with neighboring states, as well as the creation of favorable conditions for containers and multimodal transportation and cooperation in the field of Information and Technology and exchange of preliminary information.
Following the meeting, the Heads of Delegation signed “the Protocol of the First Meeting of the Heads of Railway Administrations” prepared by Expert Group of the Railway Administrations.
